


Five Times Eobard Came To Caitlin's Rescue (And The One Time She Came To His)

by ageless_aislynn



Series: Snowells prompts [12]
Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-02
Updated: 2020-05-04
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:28:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,468
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23925379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ageless_aislynn/pseuds/ageless_aislynn
Summary: For the prompt from Snowells1234/Snowells123:ReverseSnow - injured
Relationships: Caitlin Snow/Eobard Thawne | Harrison Wells
Series: Snowells prompts [12]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1704868
Comments: 16
Kudos: 29
Collections: My Favourite Reverse-Flash Stories





	1. Five Times...

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Snowells1234](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Snowells1234/gifts).



> Yes, we're being a little unconventional by letting "..And The One Time..." stand as its own chapter. Because it refused to be anywhere _near_ the size of the other parts. We had several strong conversations about that fact, then finally arm-wrestled to see if it should actually be Chapter 2. 
> 
> It won. ;) 
> 
> If you read, I hope you enjoy! ♥

1.

"I feel so foolish," Caitlin said, trying not to wince as the bandage was wrapped around her throbbing wrist. "I mean, if I'm going to sprain something, it should've at least been, you know, during a meta attack."

"No need to feel foolish, Dr. Snow," Dr. Wells told her. "Anyone can fall. Especially when _someone_ doesn't clean up the mess they spilled."

"I'm really sorry, Caitlin!" Cisco called from the other room where it sounded like he was trying grind down cement. "I had no idea this stuff was both so slick and so unwilling to be mopped up!"

Dr. Wells rolled his eyes in such a deliberate way that it made her laugh despite the pain. 

"Thank you," she said as he finished off her bandage.

"You're very welcome," he said and, for a moment, they both seemed to forget that he no longer needed to keep gently holding her hand.

2.

"Are you all right, Dr. Snow?"

Caitlin lowered her phone guiltily, as if caught doing something she wasn't supposed to. "I've been talking to some scientists on a forum board," she admitted. "It's very old school, usually a witty, intelligent group of people. I sometimes float theories by them, nothing specific enough that they would know what we're working on."

The last part she said quickly, as if worried Dr. Wells would think she was violating the confidentiality of her work for S.T.A.R. Labs, but he made a dismissive gesture.

"So what's the problem?"

"Well," she said and gave an embarrassed laugh, "basically somebody on the Internet hurt my feelings. It's nothing, really. Wounded pride. So silly."

His blue eyes briefly looked icy but it must've just been a trick of the light glinting off his glasses.

She set her phone down on her desk. "I'll get back to work now," she said, trying to sound as if she'd already dismissed the entire incident from her mind. He nodded and moved on in his motorized wheelchair.

Later, she came back from getting a cup of coffee to discover that her phone was showing the post made by "SciGuyJJS" where he had called her a worthless hack, among other more creative names. _I thought I signed out,_ she mused but, granted, she'd been a little unnerved having that conversation with Dr. Wells. It was possible she'd meant to but hadn't.

On the news that night as she was getting ready for bed, a story caught her attention. A promising, up-and-coming scientist had been arrested on multiple counts of fraud and larceny. As they were dragging him out of a lab in handcuffs, he was yelling, "I was framed! That thing in yellow destroyed my work and framed me!"

It still might not have struck her as more than a passing curiosity except for his name: John Joseph Smythe.

 _JJS_ , she thought. _No, it can't be… That would be too much of a coincidence, wouldn't it?_

On the forum the next morning, "SciGuyJJS" had had his account suspended and all of his posts deleted. No one knew why.

3.

There was a moment of absolute clarity when she saw the glowing meta pull, of all things, an ordinary hand grenade from her pocket, yank out the pin, and throw it directly at her. The alley was a dead-end and there was no time to call for help. No time to do much more than uselessly flinch and, of course, to feel stupid for letting herself get trapped. 

For a split-second, she thought the blast was sending her speeding through the air. Heat seared her face, pain ripped across her left arm above her elbow, but instead of crashing into one of the brick walls as she expected, she was set lightly down on her feet.

She looked up at the figure who had carried her away from the explosion. The figure in the yellow suit. With glowing red eyes. Who was vibrating. And her mind immediately bypassed all of those major details to grasp onto something small.

"Your sleeve is torn," she said, gesturing at a clearly ripped place on his bicep that was frantically waving though the air with the vibration. "I think the shrapnel hit you."

Of all of the things he might have expected her to say, that was clearly not one of them.

"Um," he said in his distorted voice. He shuffled his feet slightly, like a teenager trying to figure out how to talk to his crush.

"Here, turn around," she directed and he did so as if too startled to refuse. "Oh, you _did_ get hit. There are tears all over the back of your suit but I can't tell if you'll need stitches or not. I can check if you--?"

"It's fine," he said quickly, facing her again. "Speedster healing. The suit's actually more of a pain to fix."

In the awkward silence that followed, she felt a little silly. Here they were standing around, trying to have a conversation as if they weren't enemies.

 _We_ are _enemies, aren't we?_ she thought.

"Why did you save me?" she asked quietly.

"I-"

The distinctive whoosh of another speedster arriving interrupted whatever he had been about to say.

"Get your arm looked at," he said instead. "You might be the one to need stitches."

And then he vanished in a riot of red lightning right before Barry found her.

4.

"Caitlin, you've got to give me your hand! Moving this could cause it to collapse on you."

Disorientated, she tried to look around. She was flat on her belly with barely enough room to raise her head. It was dark. She could smell smoke. A wave of fear went through her like a full body cramp and she whimpered.

"Caitlin!"

To her right, there was an opening in the darkness. Two glowing red eyes seemed to hover there and she cowered, afraid.

"This is the meta doing this to you. He's causing these massive feelings of fear but you can overcome it. You have to. I can pull you free, just give me your hand."

The voice was distorted and did little to help her find a way through the cloying miasma in her mind. She shook her head.

The distorted voice cursed for a moment, then suddenly the distortion dropped.

"Look at me. Look."

The voice was familiar and she did as it asked. This time, there were no glowing eyes, just the face of a man in a mask. She blinked, fighting both the sting of smoke as well as the heavy press of the fright.

He pulled the mask back, revealing dark hair. He was… She knew him. She knew that she knew him but she couldn't find his name in the thick clouds of emotion crowding her brain.

"Caitlin," he said again, his tone more desperate. "Please. I need you to trust me now. Reach for me."

Terror bore down on her in a fresh wave but that voice… That face… She knew him. She _knew him_.

It was hard to make herself move but she did. With all the strength she had left, she stretched her hand out towards his.

5.

Funerals were never fun occasions but Caitlin's heart felt especially heavy after this one. She rubbed her eyes with the back of one hand as she came through the front door, knowing her makeup was already wrecked.

As she turned, her gaze immediately went to the unexpected pop of vibrant color on her coffee table: a vase of sunflowers greeting her with cheery yellow faces, tied with a dark red satin bow.

She took a step towards the table and some slight sound made her stop.

"Wait," she said on impulse and the blur of red lightning managed to skid to a halt before he phased out through her door.

"I heard about your friend," he said in his distorted voice.

She nodded, feeling tears welling up once more. "She was one of my professors but we became friends in the years since. We'd been planning on getting together for dinner the next time she was in Central City but..."

He nodded but seemed to be out of his depth when it came to knowing what else to say.

She turned back towards the flowers, brushing the petals with her fingertips. "These are beautiful, thank you," she said.

He was silent for so long that she thought he must've slipped away. But she heard a soft footfall behind her and then his hand came to rest lightly on her shoulder.

"She actually was in town two months ago and I… I was too busy to see her." The confession fell from her mouth without her realizing it was going to. "If I would've just known. If I would've just _made the time_ …"

Her words choked off with a sob and his fingers tightened gently on her shoulder.

She hadn't told that to anybody, not even Cisco. Why was it easier to trust an enemy than her friends?

 _But that's just it, isn't it?_ she thought almost hysterically. _He's our enemy, my enemy, so why isn't he acting like it?_

"I'm sorry for your loss," he murmured.

That did it. She spun towards him. He was more than fast enough to have avoided her, of course, but he let her press her cheek to his chest and wrap her arms around his waist. His arms went around her, tentative and unsure at first, but then with increasing confidence.

"It's going to be all right," he murmured into her hair. "I've got you."

And he held her like that for a long time, letting her cry for as long as she needed.


	2. And The One...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The conclusion for the prompt from Snowells1234/Snowells123:  
> ReverseSnow - injured

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The grand finale! ;) 
> 
> If you read, I hope you enjoy! ♥

6.

It wasn't uncommon for Caitlin to start her day at S.T.A.R. Labs early, but generally Cisco was there ahead of her. Today, she seemed to be the first one in.

Until she heard a soft crash in the winding hallway ahead of her as she made her way to the Cortex.

All she had with her for defense was her purse. _Why did I clean it out this weekend? It was a lot heavier before. It would've made a much better weapon!_

Clutching it to her chest, she crept forward and found the Reverse Flash sprawled in the middle of the hall, writhing in pain and appearing to be under attack by his own red lightning.

She dropped her purse and rushed to him. "What's happening? What can I do?"

"Sedative," he grunted and gave her the type and dosage.

She sprinted to the med bay, drew the medicine and ran back with the syringe.

To her surprise, he'd unzipped the suit down the front so that he could shrug his left arm out of it, revealing a white tank top underneath. He'd left the mask on, which apparently was attached to the back of the suit, but he wasn't vibrating to blur his features as he usually did, though his eyes were glowing red.

She knelt. Red lightning continued skittering over his bare skin, briefly dancing harmlessly across her hands as she delivered the shot.

In moments, everything began to quiet. His breathing evened out, his eyes returned to normal and the red lightning stopped.

Almost immediately, familiar voices floated to them.

"Man, I don't know, but I don't think you can trust some random dude's advice about superspeed on a forum board."

"He sounded really authoritative, though."

"He was using Comic Sans, Barry. Nobody sounds authoritative in Comic Sans. That's one of the absolutes of the universe."

The man in the yellow suit was on his feet in a blink but only superspeeded a step away before he stumbled into the wall. She dropped the syringe and managed to get to him fast enough to keep him from crashing to the ground.

She slung his arm over her shoulder, saying, "Come on, we've got to get you to the med bay."

"Nnn," he tried to protest. "They'll find…"

"No, they won't," she assured him. "Now, walk, while you can."

He grew heavier and heavier as they went but she determinedly kept them moving until she finally steered him onto a gurney.

"Hurry," she urged, all-too-aware that she could hear her friends' voices again, growing closer. 

She grabbed a blanket while he was trying to sort out his arms and legs.

"Mask off," she instructed, shaking the blanket out over him.

He stared at her like she was out of her mind.

"Mask _off_ ," she said with distinct urgency. "Harrison, I need you to trust me. This will work."

The name made him flinch and he looked at her, his pupils dilated. But her tone got through to him and he pulled back the mask, letting it fall behind his head before he thumped onto the pillow.

She carefully raised his head up again and tucked the mask down behind him as best she could, then pulled the blanket up to his chin. "There," she said softly. "That'll hide the suit. Close your eyes and don't say anything. I'll take care of them."

That was all the reassurance she could offer before heading to the hall, shutting the door behind herself. He was still visible through the window but seemed to be obeying her hasty instructions. 

"Caitlin, is everything okay?" Cisco asked in a concerned tone as he and Barry came into view.

"We found your purse and a hypodermic in the hallway," Barry went on. "What's going on?"

She put a finger to her lips. "Let's go back that way," she said. "Dr. Wells is resting."

They both looked in the window.

"What's wrong with him?" Cisco asked.

"Is he okay?" Barry craned his neck as if trying to get a better look.

She got them each by an arm and urged them away. "It's his… Look, the sort of injury he has can lead to complications. He doesn't like to appear weak in front of anybody if he can help it. So let's give him some time, okay?"

The lies came with shocking ease and must've sounded very plausible because both men immediately nodded. 

"I need to be able to monitor him," she went on, improvising. "So do you think you can handle anything that comes up today?"

"Of course," Cisco said.

"You take care of Dr. Wells," Barry said at almost the same time. "Leave everything else to us."

Once they were off to the Cortex, she went back and retrieved her purse and the syringe from the hallway. Returning to the med bay, she put the former aside and the latter she disposed of in a sharps container.

He seemed to be asleep as she came in, closed the blinds and shut the door. But when she moved a chair next to him, he startled as it softly clinked against the floor.

"It's all right. It's just me," she assured him. "Were you attacked by a meta? Who did this to you?"

He blinked a few times, still clearly under the influence of the sedative. "Experiment," he finally said. "Went wrong."

He shut his eyes again so she sat down, thinking he'd sleep a little more before his accelerated healing metabolized out the sedative. 

But a moment later, he surprised her by saying, "When'd you know?"

"I couldn't figure out why I kept dreaming that Dr. Wells had been the one to save me from the fear meta. That made no sense. Until I realized the only sense it _could_ make."

He didn't respond, then abruptly jerked again. Red lightning flared around him as if he were about to superspeed away.

"Hey, it's all right," she told him, putting her hand on his shoulder atop the blanket. "You're okay. You're safe."

"I'm never safe," he said, his eyes inexorably closing again. Then a few moments later, he bolted upright, saying, "Caitlin?"

"I'm here," she said. The way the blanket had fallen back revealed again how he was halfway out of the Reverse Flash suit. "Do you think you can get that the rest of the way off if I help you?"

He looked down as if he'd forgotten about it. "Yeah."

She got up and went to the other side of the gurney to assist him.

"You repaired this really well," she said, smoothing her palm across the thick material over his bicep. "I can't even see where the shrapnel tore it."

He didn't respond and she looked at him, hoping he hadn't fallen asleep sitting up. Instead, he was watching her hand moving slowly along the yellow fabric. She abruptly realized she was, essentially, just stroking his arm.

She gave a guilty start. "Um, here, let's… I'll grab this part and you…"

Awkwardly, she helped get his arm free. She glanced up once as she was leaning in closer and found him quite fixated on her mouth. When he realized he was caught, he gave her a guilty little smile that unexpectedly made muscles flutter low in her abdomen.

 _Flirty Dr. Wells_ wasn't something she had ever seen before. Obviously, she wasn't prepared.

She cleared her throat, trying to regain some sense of professionalism. "Okay, now, we'll need to get your boots and the rest of the-"

He blurred away in a flurry of red lightning and then reappeared in a split-second, sitting in the same place on the gurney. The blanket dropped back down on him with a soft _thump_.

"So, you could've just done that to begin with?" she said, arching a brow at him.

He tried and failed to look innocent. That drew her attention to how dilated his eyes still were.

"Look up a little," she said, guiding him with her fingertips under his chin. 

While she was studying the way his pupils reacted to the light, she felt something move at her neck. He had the tiny pendant on her necklace now resting on his own fingertip, the small, perfect sunflower glinting a cheerful gold.

"You noticed that before, didn't you? That's how you knew I liked sunflowers?"

"I notice everything about you," he said without artifice. Then he swayed a bit precariously. She caught hold of his arms and urged him to lie back once more.

"Maybe no superspeeding until the sedative's out of your system?" she suggested. "Do you know why it's taking so long?"

As she returned to her chair, he turned onto his side so that he was facing her.

"I was trying to increase my speed," he said. "Didn't work. Messed up my metabolism. Sedative should be out in an hour or so."

She nodded. His eyelids grew heavy again but snapped open once more when she shifted in her chair.

"Rest," she assured him. "I'm here."

After a few moments of silence, he said without opening his eyes, "I need to get faster."

"Why?"

"D'you know how hard it is keeping up with you? I can run 'round the world in a thought but keeping you from getting blown up or kidnapped? About all that I can handle, lately."

"Sorry?" she said but that felt quite inadequate. "Don't… don't do anything like this again on my account, okay? There's no need. Don't risk it, Harrison."

One eye opened. "Eobard."

"What?"

"My name. Real one." He continued regarding her with that one eye. 

"Eobard," she repeated and that earned a crooked smile. "We have a lot of things to talk about when you're feeling better."

He hummed in agreement and closed his eye. For approximately five seconds before looking at her again, eyes heavy lidded. "Caitlin?"

She started to chastise him about needing his rest but something in his expression seemed slightly _fragile_ , so she merely said, "Yes?"

"Don't leave me?" he asked.

Her heart clenched in her chest at that. "I won't leave you," she promised and held her hand out to him. He immediately took it, rubbing his thumb across her knuckles.

"There is," he murmured.

"There is what?"

"A reason why I risk it. I'm in love with you." He paused. "I'm going to be sorry I said that in an hour or so."

She went still, surprised.

Soft sadness tugged at his features. "I know you don't feel the same."

For a moment, it was as if she were the one with superspeed, her brain racing through all of the moments where he'd come to her rescue in some way or another. How many times she'd struggled with how her feelings refused to line up with how she was _supposed to feel_.

"Maybe," she said softly, "you don't know as much as you think you do."

Hope bloomed slowly across his face, ending in a genuine smile. "Thank you," he murmured, "for saving me."

"You're very welcome," she said, gently squeezing his fingers. "Sleep now."

He finally did.


End file.
